Sport Gambling Is the New Big Tobacco

ESSAY OPINION

Sport Gambling Is the

New Big Tobacco

The industry uses the same playbook that hooked millions on cigarettes. It's time we noticed.

I was just sitting there watching sports. Nothing unusual. Except I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen this before—this density of recruitment, this relentlessness, this sense that every break, every broadcast, every jersey was trying to sign me up for something. And then it hit me. I hadn’t seen anything like this since the late 1980s.

I was a teenager in the late ‘80s. And if I tried to tell you just how much pressure we all felt to take up smoking, I couldn’t do it justice. Forget peer pressure. Every peer was under pressure. From the Marlboro Man. From the ads on every billboard, every magazine, every television set. From the cool older kid with a cigarette who looked like he’d stepped straight out of a commercial—because in a way, he had. The culture was saturated. Smoking wasn’t just something you did. It was something you were, if you wanted to be someone.

Sitting there watching the game, commercial break after commercial break, I felt that same ambient pull. DraftKings. FanDuel. A “responsible gambling” PSA with a betting logo at the end. An announcer dropping odds mid-sentence like it’s part of the commentary. By the time the game came back on, I’d already done the math on a parlay I had no intention of placing.

That’s not an accident. That’s a playbook. And I recognize it. I grew up inside it.

Sport gambling today is what Big Tobacco was in the 1950s and ‘60s. The tactics are almost identical. The difference? Back then, it was doctors smoking on TV. Today, it’s your favorite athlete telling you to parlay your bets.

1. Targeting the Most Vulnerable People

Big Tobacco knew exactly who to go after: young people, people going through tough times, and people already showing signs of addiction. Joe Camel wasn’t an accident. He was designed to make cigarettes look fun and cool to teenagers.

Sport gambling apps do the same thing—but with better technology.

•        Young people: Betting apps flood social media with ads. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube—every scroll brings a new promo. “Sign up with your birthday and get two hundred bucks in bonus bets.” That’s aimed directly at eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds.

•        People dealing with hard stuff: Divorce. Job loss. Breakup. Death in the family. These are the moments when someone might be looking for an escape. Gambling apps track users. If you suddenly start betting more at 2 a.m., the app notices. And instead of helping you stop, it sends you a “special offer” for a free bet. That’s not generosity. That’s hunting.

•        People already addicted: Big Tobacco engineered cigarettes with extra nicotine to keep you hooked. Gambling apps engineer features like “micro-betting” and “same-game parlays.” These features make you feel like you’re always one click away from winning big. You’re not. You’re just clicking.

2. Making It Impossible to Escape

Try watching one sports game without seeing a gambling ad. Go ahead. Try.

You can’t. Because the industry has made itself everywhere.

•        On jerseys: NBA players wear FanDuel patches on their sleeves.

•        On the field: Soccer stadiums have DraftKings logos on the digital boards around the pitch.

•        During every commercial break: Relentless. Loud. Fast-talking. “Bet now!” “Live odds!” “Profit boost!”

•        On podcasts, YouTube highlights, even the news: You can’t watch a postgame interview without the announcer mentioning the over/under.

Big Tobacco got cigarettes into movies, magazines, and even cartoons. But they never got a logo stitched onto a World Series jersey. Sport gambling has.

“One tap. You might win. Everyone’s doing it.”

3. Making It Look Cool

Nobody wants to feel like a loser. So gambling companies spend millions making betting look like something winners do.

•        Celebrities: Kevin Hart, Jamie Foxx, and retired athletes like Charles Barkley have all done gambling ads. When you see a famous, funny, successful person betting, your brain thinks: That could be me.

•        Influencers: Your favorite gaming YouTuber or sports podcaster probably has a betting sponsor. They’ll say, “I put ten bucks on this parlay for fun.” They won’t show you the nights they lost five hundred.

•        Music videos: Watch any rap video from the last few years. Betting apps show up on chains, on phones, in lyrics. It’s the new status symbol.

Big Tobacco had the Marlboro Man—rugged, independent, cool. Sport gambling has the Parlay King—young, rich, laughing with friends while cashing a ticket. Same trick. Different decade.

4. Pretending to Care (While Doing Nothing)

Have you ever seen a gambling ad that says “Gamble responsibly” in tiny letters at the bottom of the screen for half a second? That’s not caring. That’s covering their butts.

Big Tobacco did the same thing. They ran ads that said “Think: Don’t smoke” while simultaneously making cigarettes cheaper and easier to buy. They funded “research” on smoking alternatives. They pretended to be part of the solution.

Sport gambling apps have “responsible gaming” pages buried in their settings. They let you set deposit limits—but they make it just annoying enough that most people don’t bother. And here’s the dirty secret: when their algorithms detect someone who might have a real problem, they don’t kick that person off. They send them more offers. Because a problem gambler is a profitable gambler.

5. One-Touch Access

Remember when you had to go to a casino or call a bookie? That felt like a big deal. It was a barrier.

Now? One tap. Your credit card is already saved. Your face ID unlocks the app. You can place a bet while standing in line for coffee.

•        One-touch betting: No thinking. No waiting. Just tap and go.

•        Customized parlays: The app literally builds bets for you based on what you’ve bet before. “We noticed you like betting on quarterbacks. Try this parlay!” It feels like a friend helping you out. It’s not. It’s a slot machine pretending to be your buddy.

Big Tobacco made cigarettes easy to buy—vending machines, gas stations, every corner store. Sport gambling has made betting even easier. Your phone is the vending machine. And it never runs out.

So What Do We Do?

Nobody is saying adults shouldn’t be allowed to gamble. But we should be honest about what’s happening. An industry worth billions is using the exact same playbook that gave us lung cancer, emphysema, and millions of deaths. They target the young, the sad, and the addicted. They make their product impossible to avoid. They wrap it in coolness. They fake concern. They make it so easy that you barely notice you’ve lost fifty bucks until it’s gone.

We didn’t ban cigarettes overnight. But we did ban TV ads. We did stop Joe Camel. We did force warning labels. We did make it harder for companies to prey on kids.

It’s time to do the same with sport gambling. Because right now, a sixteen-year-old watching a basketball game sees a jersey patch, a commercial, and an influencer all telling them the same thing: One tap. You might win. Everyone’s doing it.

That’s not entertainment. That’s addiction by design. And we’ve seen this movie before. The ending wasn’t happy.